After living downtown for more than two years, I have to put a comma to my downtown life. It’s about time to stop torturing myself with the commute that ages me faster. Honestly, a little piece of me is still mourning about it…… all the awesome food… It’s a bit late to start yelp-ing so I have to write something here!!
Breakfast or Brunch
Okay, let’s start with the best breakfast or brunch places… The number one must be Meli’s Café close to where I lived. It’s so good that every weekend morning or early afternoon, there’s a long line waiting outside. Be it summer or winter… I feel that on average we waited more than 45mins just to get a table. Although sweet dishes are good, I recommend the savory dishes! Omelets and frittatas are extremely tasty especially the ones on chef’s specials menu which are different each time. They have good choices of fresh juice too.
My second favorite is Flo. It’s located a little further west. It’s more Mexican influenced. It serves Intelligentsia coffee (yay!). Flo opens for dinner with decent entrées as well.
Dine-out
Next, dine-out restaurants!!!
AVEC!!!! It’s been our all-time favorite!! All dishes are designed to share. It seems a little bizarre to have a setting like this in a western restaurant but actually it’s quite a lot of fun. On multiple occasions, strangers sitting next to us would start talking about the food, different restaurants they like, etc. On my first visit, the couple sitting next to us actually let us take a sip from their wine! As for food, awesome!! It wakes up my taste buds. Sometimes I feel that eating there is like listening to a symphony. You can taste the notes of different flavors/ aroma/texture so distinctly and yet they come together very well. The menu is changed every now and then. However, the dates, being a stable, on the appetizer menu is a must item. Of course, the wait can be quite long as they don’t take reservation over the phone. I don’t recommend going there with a very hungry stomach. Otherwise, you’ll just stuff yourself real fast instead of enjoying the notes of flavors. As a side note, Chef Koren Grieveson actually competed on “Iron Chef America” with Chef Cora on butter. Results? A TIE! That’s rare enough!
It’s pretty difficult to come up with a second best… there are too many good ones… Spiaggia Café, Blackbird, Sepia, One Sixty Blue… Publican! Well, I can’t really rank them but Publican is definitely special. It has a wide beer menu that makes my eyes dizzy. It serves oysters and pork…anything related to pork literally. Aged ham, pork rind, sausages, pork shoulders, etc… really anything about pork (pig)! One not so good thing is that it seems difficult to find any vegetables on the menu. Meat-lovers have to try!
Indian food… I can’t say we’ve tried a lot of Indian restaurants… we still haven’t tried those high-end fancy fusion ones like Arun’s or Vermillion … but this one called Jaipur is quite delicious. Just make sure you double check what you order with the waiter.
Take-out/Delivery
Last but not least, how can I miss a very important part of my downtown life – delivery! Imagine, getting home at 7-ish or 8-ish after a long day (I woke up before 6am), who still wants to cook? A call away is just too tempting. No cooking. No dishes. After trying so many different take-outs (mainly Asian), I’ve come up with the following:
Best Asian Take-out – Takie-outit
It’s purely luck that we drove by and tried this store. We kept ordering since then. It has the best Hot and Sour Soup and Singaporean Noodles. You may think it’s hard to screw up these two basic dishes, but trust me, they can go very wrong. Takie-outit has Asian-style fried chicken wings which are amazing too! The lady is extremely nice in person but sometimes can be a little cranky over the phone so I ordered online instead.
Runner-up – Joy Yee (UIC)
Joy Yee’s food tastes kinda okay unless you order it several times a week. The best thing is the variety of choices. Recently, I feel that they have shrunk the sizes of the containers. Still not a bad choice.
Second Runner-up – Chi’s Café
I didn’t know that they have delivery until a few days before I moved out! I wish I knew about this place earlier. Well, I think this place is more for local Cantonese or Chow Zhou style food. I like that it seems to taste healthier than Joy Yee’s. Less MSG? It could very well be an illusion. Fast and polite service.
Mexican – Chavas Tacos
Well, I love this place A LOT. This place’s name would slip into my mind maybe once or twice a week even after I moved. I don’t know how they make it. Chavas Special is the best Mexican food I’ve ever had so far. Skillet Steak with egg, some grilled scallions, Quesadillas, plus a side order of nopales. The rice is super awesome. It looks simple but is difficult to find such taste elsewhere. “How do they make it?” is the question that comes to my mind while I eat. Perez in the West Loop, which is not bad, can’t match it at all. Of course the calorie count is not low either…definitely it’s not something one should have every night…that’s probably one of the reasons why I miss it so much. As a warm reminder, Chavas Special is very spicy. It’s a good start to build up spicy tolerance. The restaurant is located close to Western Avenue Metra Station but don’t let the neighborhood scare you.
My mouth is drooling just by typing all these… I will come back downtown just for the good food!! There’re still so many good places I want to go. I’m so looking forward to the famous Alinea next month!!! In the meantime, I’ve started compiling a list of good places in the Northwest Suburbs… Let me know if you something to recommend!!
Websites:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/chavas-tacos-chicago
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